The Dystopian World of AI Relationships is Here
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What is AI intimacy and how common is it among adults?
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Maybe it's Maybelline. AI relationships, corny, embarrassing, a recession indicator? I mean, talk about a cheap date. Or are they signaling something deeper about how modern relationships simply don't work for humans? There's no shortage of Reddit posts from people finding something resembling companionship in a chat bot. But before we laugh at anybody, unless you already started laughing, How are we even defining relationships here? Where's the line between asking a robot to fix your spreadsheet and asking a robot if you're gonna be okay? I'm Akilah Hughes, and on this episode of How Is This Better, I'm trying to figure out who the one in 10 Americans talking to a chatbot are actually talking to. My guest, Bridget Todd, has been living inside that question for a year.
My name is Bridget Todd. I am a podcaster. I host iHeartRadio's tech and culture podcast called There Are No Girls on the Internet. And I am the author of a new audio book with Simon & Schuster called Love at First Prompt, AI and the Future of Intimacy.
She's also a first time author, which means she's been through the same specific hell that I have.
Yeah.
yeah i'm like did you love being isolated for all that time to work on your your dream craft that's great yeah did you love like not showering stressing out yeah learning to like becoming traumatized by emails because you knew you were late on a deadline we love that we love it let's start with the basics before we get to anybody's ai boyfriend bridget wanted to know what the actual range of these relationships looks like and the numbers are bigger than you think
The reason why I wanted to sort of start there from kind of a broad exploration of the different kinds of relationships people have with AI is because I think that we naturally gravitate toward the most juicy and salacious kinds of relationships that people have with AI. Not really that surprising. We love kind of gawking at the sex lives and romantic lives of other people. I'm not above that either. I think that really kind of underscores the fact that we just gravitate toward extremes when we talk about what it looks like for folks to have intimacy with AI, right? Like most people are not experiencing sexual or romantic intimacy with AI, but- A lot of people, I think Pew said for adults, it's one in 10 people have experienced emotional intimacy with AI.
And for people under 30, that jumps to one in five. So one in 10 people, that's like how many people are left-handed in America. That's a lot of people.
Yeah. I'm one of those lefties. Yeah. Me and Barack Obama in a relationship with an
AI? Barack
Obama left-handed? He sure
is. Oh my God, that makes so much sense.
How do people unintentionally develop emotional bonds with chatbots?
I see it. I get it.
One in 10 is a lot of people. So I asked her how emotional intimacy even gets defined. Because I think there's a lot of confusion about what an AI relationship is. Are you just talking to it all day? Because then I bet the number is like way higher. Are you like, I don't know, intimate? This whole conversation is awkward, but you get the gist.
I don't necessarily think there's like a stark black and white line where a relationship goes from just you asking Chad Chippity a basic question to, oh, now I'm having some sort of intimate connection with AI. The people that I spoke to, both people who self-described as experiencing intimacy with AI and then researchers who look into this at an academic level, both kind of said the same thing, that for a lot of these emotional or romantic or, you know, intimate, however you want to describe that, connections with AI, it starts oftentimes not from an intimate place. It starts with just like, hey, help me out with this work question or something.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is AI intimacy and how common is it among adults?
0:00–3:04
2
How do people unintentionally develop emotional bonds with chatbots?
3:04–5:56
3
What happened when Chris proposed to ChatGPT and what does it reveal about AI guardrails?
5:56–8:38
4
Why did users feel grief after OpenAI changed the ChatGPT model’s personality?
8:38–12:18
5
How did personal crises drive Bridget Todd to rely on ChatGPT for support?
12:18–16:28
6
What are the privacy and power‑imbalance risks of forming relationships with corporate‑owned AI?
16:28–21:35
7
How is the tech industry turning AI companionship into a consumer product?
21:35–25:06